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Who wins Solyndra message war?

Democrats are divided on how worried they should be about Solyndra attacks. | AP Photo

Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado said she doubts the Republicans have gained any traction on Solyndra. She’s the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight panel, which led the Solyndra investigation.

“I think that [subcommittee Chairman] Cliff Stearns and the Republicans thought they could find some kind of smoking gun,” she said. “And what it turned out was, they found a loan that was made under the federal program that went bad, and they continually tried to turn that into something more than it was and they haven’t been able to.”

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The White House and the Energy Department have insisted that the decisions to approve the Solyndra deal were based on merit, not ties between the company and Obama campaign donors. And Republicans haven’t found proof to the contrary, despite a wealth of emails and other documents showing high-level administration interest in the progress of the loan guarantee.

Meanwhile, evidence is scant on how much mileage the Republicans are getting out of all their Solyndra messaging — though their persistence is a sign that GOP strategists see promise there. And conservative groups have certainly spent big bucks promoting the message.

Luke Frans, executive director of the GOP-aligned polling firm Resurgent Republic, said the issue hits home when people in focus groups hear about Solyndra’s price tag and a version of how the Energy Department approved the company’s $535 million loan guarantee. He said it’s especially damaging for the president among swing voters.

“Solyndra is an issue that puts President Obama in the context of being just another politician, instead of the transformative, post-partisan figure introduced to the electorate in 2008,” said Frans, a former George W. Bush White House aide.

“If you’re a disillusioned Obama voter, this is an issue that reminds you why you’re disillusioned,” he added.

But Frans acknowledged that Solyndra is not the top issue going into November. “It’s not going to knock the economy off the top of the voting ballot,” he said.

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips, whose group has spent at least $13.5 million on ads attacking Solyndra and the Obama stimulus, says the criticisms work best in context with the broader stimulus effort. “Solyndra is just an example,” he said.

After hosting focus groups, Phillips said he came away thinking that the goal isn’t to get viewers to follow every detail of the Solyndra deal.

“What you’re hoping to do is give them a sense of a theme or just one information data point that rings true with something already in their mind, that confirms a broader belief,” Phillips said.

Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at the Cook Political Report, agreed that Solyndra doesn’t work as a standalone issue. “Instead it’s a symptom of what Republicans call ‘Obama’s failed economic policy.’ It is one concrete example for voters that the stimulus/loan guarantees didn’t work,” she said.

Romney aides say they have Republican National Committee testing that shows the Solyndra attacks work when boiled down to a one- to two-sentence message about the money lost and the company’s connections to Obama donors.

“It was the single, No. 1 most potent hit” among about 25 messages, including the growing national debt and a lack of “shovel ready job projects,” a Romney aide said. “It even beat health care.”

It's the taxpayers' money, not the government's money. And they squandered it to push a radical environmentalist agenda.

At the same time, they stood in the way of traditional energy producers expanding and creating jobs, such as squashing the XL pipeline. Again, to push a radical environmentalist agenda.

If we want a real private sector job boom through the development of our own natural resources, and the security that comes from energy independence, then we'll send this fellow packing and elect the candidate who has promised exactly those things: Mitt Romney.

What are you going to say that Obama didn't get a donation from the executives for government loans? What are you going to say that solar (or wind) is competitive [is isn't by a factor of 4 to 6 times the cost of coal, gas or oil]? What are you going to say that we need solar [we have 200 years of clean gas]? So, what are you going to say? What are you going to say about the fact that almost all solar and wind are bust?

Solyndra again? Really? This is definitely a sign that the Neo-Cons are on the run. As Gen. Patton quipped, "Hold em by the nose and Kick em in the ass".

You may be in the position to **** away $525 million to a donor of OBozo, but most Americans are not in that position. Send a check to the U.S. Treasury if you find $535 million to be nothing! Otherwise, face the reality that this incompetent president is a failurel

There is no valid rational response. Though DWS can lie with a perfectly straight face even she would be hard-pressed to make a good story out of the taxpayers millions of wasted dollars. The Dims do love women - they put Cutter DWS and Pelosi out to tell the BIGGEST whoppers.

It would seem that Obama’s Domestic Energy Policy consists primarily of offering Taxpayer subsidies and Billion-dollar Loan guarantees to his Political Affiliates.

Wether it be $80 Billion given to General Motors and his Union constituencies to produce the Automotive train-wreck called the Chevy Volt - to the $250 Million in Stimulus dollars given to Jeffrey Immelt (Obama’s Economic Jobs Czar and CEO of General Electric) - or the more generous $500 million in Taxpayer Loan Guarantees given to Political contributor George Kaiser and his now bankrupt Solyndra.

Obama’s Green-Tech Initiatives just don’t stop at the shores of America either - in some cases Billions in Loan guarantees and Taxpayer funding is going to Foreign interests such as Fisker in Finland and Nationalized Oil Interests in Mexico and Brazil.

While in America this Administration continues to subsidize a host of visionary Green-Tech failures such as Solar One, First Solar, Abound Solar, Nevada Blue and Geo-Thermal, in addition to any one of a dozen similar Multi-million Dollar boondoggles that have benefitted from Obama’s Crony-Capitalism. In the last 3 years close to $26 Billion dollars in Taxpayer funding has been poured into Green-Tech programs now on the verge of Bankruptcy - all with close ties to the Obama Administration and each having the distinction of receiving subsidies that have been squandered in the name of Obama’s Green-Tech Development Programs.

Talk about Waste, Fraud and Abuse!! - Obama is the biggest perpetrator of it all.

Obama’s Green-Tech Initiatives are perhaps the consummate examples of Political Cronyism and still this Administration continues on a path to promote their consistently poor record of picking “Winners and Losers”.

All of these subsidies were sold to American Taxpayers predicated upon technologies that are perhaps decades from becoming mainstream if ever. While in the “here and now”, Obama’s Domestic Energy Policy continues to focus on limiting today’s pragmatic solutions with onerous regulatory mandates that limit America’s Economic future and Domestic Energy Supply.

It is Obama's tragic lack of Business Acumen that has squandered $Billions of Public and Taxpayer Funding and it is his own arrogance and incompetence that disqualifies him for a 2nd Term!

The truth is that we eventually must convert from fossil fuels to other sources of energy. Eventually fossil fuels will be too difficult to obtain and the planet too laden with its byproducts to continue. It is inevitable. But the transition won't be simple. There will be a lot of trial and error. Some technologies will work and some will fail. Companies will succeed and companies will fail. There will be more Solyndras, but there will also be successes. Right now the cost of alternative energies is higher than fossil fuels. That doesn't mean we should abandon them. As they become more widespread, the cost will come down. The cost of solar panels has dramatically decreased in the past 10 years. It's now a viable options for many people. But America didn't support it until it was too late and the Chinese took over the industry. We can't let that happen again. We do have to invest in alternative energies so we can profit from them in the future.

President Obama has increased energy production in the country. We are now importing less oil than at any time in recent memory. A simple minded energy policy of willy-nilly drilling is not a long range solution. It isn't even a very good short term solution.

Along with more energy production, we need to conserve. Higher CAFE standards are a big help. Simply converting your light bulbs to CFLs and LEDs can save up to 40% of household electric use.

It would seem that Obama’s Domestic Energy Policy consists primarily of offering Taxpayer subsidies and Billion-dollar Loan guarantees to his Political Affiliates.

Wether it be $80 Billion given to General Motors and his Union constituencies to produce the Automotive train-wreck called the Chevy Volt - to the $250 Million in Stimulus dollars given to Jeffrey Immelt (Obama’s Economic Jobs Czar and CEO of General Electric) - or the more generous $500 million in Taxpayer Loan Guarantees given to Political contributor George Kaiser and his now bankrupt Solyndra.

Obama’s Green-Tech Initiatives just don’t stop at the shores of America either - in some cases Billions in Loan guarantees and Taxpayer funding is going to Foreign interests such as Fisker in Finland and Nationalized Oil Interests in Mexico and Brazil.

While in America this Administration continues to subsidize a host of visionary Green-Tech failures such as Solar One, First Solar, Abound Solar, Nevada Blue and Geo-Thermal, in addition to any one of a dozen similar Multi-million Dollar boondoggles that have benefitted from Obama’s Crony-Capitalism. In the last 3 years close to $26 Billion dollars in Taxpayer funding has been poured into Green-Tech programs now on the verge of Bankruptcy - all with close ties to the Obama Administration and each having the distinction of receiving subsidies that have been squandered in the name of Obama’s Green-Tech Development Programs.

Talk about Waste, Fraud and Abuse!! - Obama is the biggest perpetrator of it all.

Obama’s Green-Tech Initiatives are perhaps the consummate examples of Political Cronyism and still this Administration continues on a path to promote their consistently poor record of picking “Winners and Losers”.

All of these subsidies were sold to American Taxpayers predicated upon technologies that are perhaps decades from becoming mainstream if ever. While in the “here and now”, Obama’s Domestic Energy Policy continues to focus on limiting today’s pragmatic solutions with onerous regulatory mandates that limit America’s Economic future and Domestic Energy Supply.

It is Obama's tragic lack of Business Acumen that has squandered $Billions of Public and Taxpayer Funding and it is his own arrogance and incompetence that disqualifies him for a 2nd Term!

Recall that Solyndra was taken down by subsidized, cheap Chinese solar panels that dominate globally. Compare Solyndra with the runaway spending of the GOP who took a National Debt that was $800 billion through Carter and tripled it, GHW Bush added to it, and GW Bush more than doubled it yet again.

Forget about who won the "message war" on solyndra. Its the American taxpayer who lost big time with this waste of taxpayer money just because obama had to repay a favor to the guy starting up this going-nowhere company. And this is not the only "green" company to go belly up after obama wasted the taxpayers' money returning favors to his pals!

Obama knows people that live in the United States? OMG! I suppose the new rule by dullards and sister lovers is you cant ever do business with anyone you know anymore? B. Hussein Soetoro leader of the free world has a much longer list of people who he's worked with since 2009 that he didnt know prior. You can go back to your sister beaver diving now.

Taxpayers gotta help green cause Republicans are giving oil $4B / year in taxpayer money so they can jack up gas prices and make even more profits. A few eggs get broken when you make an omellete. Or in your words, a few sisters get pregnant when you're a conservative.